UPDATE: June 7, 2017: Building permits have been filed for this project, a ground breaking is expected soon.

ORIGINAL: July 6, 2016: Albertsons Companies plans a drastic overhaul of one of its earliest (and smallest) Boise stores - with a totally new store at Broadway and Beacon.

Hot on the heels of our exclusive on adding grocery delivery in the Treasure Valley, the Boise-based grocery giant will tear down its so-called Broadway market, along with several adjoining businesses - and replace it with a much larger and more modern store with some unique features.

Currently, the Albertsons store faces Beacon street and is part of a strip which includes a laundromat, liquor store, Noodles & Company and several vacant storefronts. Here's the current site plan:

If it gets approval from planning and zoning, the retailer will begin work on a 70,000 square foot store which will face Broadway instead of Beacon - and back up onto Grant Avenue. The existing store will be torn down, along with a vacant medical office and most of the strip center. The Idaho State Liquor Store and Noodles will be retained, and will become a pad site - as will the existing Wells Fargo Bank. This is how the site will look upon completion:

The store itself has been designed with a unique format which will include a second floor area and outdoor balcony. Documents filed with the City of Boise indicate the new store would include an indoor/outdoor space on the second floor for "family and group gathering and dining functions." The store borrowed design elements from the original Vista Village Albertsons Department store that dates to 1953, according to the documents (a source of Day family pride ;) ). In this archive photo of the old VV Albertsons you can see a metal trellis with the store name/logo on top - which figures into the design shown in the renderings below.

The new store will back up on to Grant Ave. The company has gone to quite a bit of work to try and preemptively answer potential city planner concerns by dressing up the sides of the building that will face residences. A row of homes once lined Grant - but they have all ben purchased and torn down, allowing Albertons to expand on the site. Here's a Google aerial image from 1999:

A P&Z hearing will be held in August. Albertsons hopes to build the new store before tearing down the existing building.